Qatar demands GCC inclusion in Iran talks

MANAMA: Gulf Arab states must have a seat at nuclear talks between world powers and neighboring Iran because of their own stake in regional stability, Qatar’s foreign minister said on Saturday.
The agreement between Iran and the United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China — known as the P5+1 group — offers Tehran some relief from damaging economic sanctions in return for more oversight of its nuclear program. Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Attiyah said the GCC deserved a place at the table as essential partners in regional stability.
“We are in the region. We are concerned,” he said on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue, a regional security conference organized by the International Institute of Strategic Studies think tank.
“I know that we have good relationships and we are a strategic partner with our allies US, UK, France and others. So what I was thinking about, it is not only P5 plus Germany; it should be P5 plus the ... GCC. “At the end of the day (in) any agreement, the GCC is meant to be part of that agreement on the region. We are trying to say it should be 5+2,” Attiyah said .
Attiyah’s suggestion that the GCC become more closely involved in the nuclear talks was echoed at the Manama Dialogue by several serving and former officials, including former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki Al-Faisal.
Many suggested Iran had to build more trust with Gulf Arabs.
Asked for his view, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said it was “important to find additional mechanisms where GCC countries in particular are consulted and brought in to the process in a new way.”